


Wind swept

by Puimoo



Category: Bleach
Genre: Can't Fear Your Own World, Gen, Novel Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:35:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22604821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Puimoo/pseuds/Puimoo
Summary: The wind sweeps through this world – their world – whipping through Shuuhei’s hair and catching on the edges of his scars.Kazeshini and Shuuhei train together.Set after the Can't Fear Your Own World novels. Spoilers abound.
Relationships: Hisagi Shuuhei & Kazeshini (Bleach)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Wind swept

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kazesuke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kazesuke/gifts).



The wind sweeps through this world – their world – whipping through Shuuhei’s hair and catching on the edges of his scars. He wants to shiver, to stand tall with narrowed eyes and a bemused, tightly drawn smile that is hollow instead of twisted, to find himself humourless instead of wound up.

The wind is almost a caress, dark and heavy.

Almost.

“This was never supposed to be easy.”

For so long, Shuuhei has only ever heard mockery in Kazeshini’s voice, this world. Ridiculously, he thinks that the mockery was easier, because then it could be dismissed as the white to Shuuhei’s black. This Kazeshini (this world) sparks in shades of red and brown, of green and oil. The clank of chains and the creak of the windmill aren’t just sounds carried on the wind-dense air, but which reverberate deep into Shuuhei’s bones.

He can feel the creaks, resonates in the clanks. He feels himself become undone and done with each moment, each echo, each breath.

And he breathes. Breathes in, breathes out. Dies again on each breath.

Yeah. Shuuhei absolutely found Kazeshini’s mockery easier. That at least he could sometimes ignore. Kazeshini isn’t mocking him now, although there is an unmistakable edge of glee there to his tone. Kazeshini has always desperately been in want of attention, and now that he has Shuuhei’s so wholly he is celebrating it. 

That Kazeshini is supposed to reflect Shuuhei’s own soul is not something worth reflecting on, not here where he is already so exposed.

Shuuhei takes a step forward to where Kazeshini waits patiently, their training having started hours ago and Shuuhei having not yet even unsheathed his blade. The grass beneath his feet starts to wilt, and Shuuhei tenses.

He knows.

He knows, he knows, he _knows._

Kazeshini smirks, resting back against the trunk of the tree. Denial doesn’t work here any more, and Shuuhei knows (he _knows_ ) that he has kept himself trapped for so long in the familiarity of death. There, there has been so much of it. Friends. Colleagues. Mentors.

Death has never offered comfort, nor relief.

Kazeshini’s smirk widens.

Whenever Shuuhei falters – and he falters so often – it is into death he steps back into, and it is through a veil of death that he has interpreted wrongly for so long Kazeshini. 

Blindly, almost at a stumble, Shuuhei forces another step forward and hears the crunch of dying grass beneath his feet.

He stops. Breaths out. Breathes in.

Dies again.

And Kazeshini waits. Kazeshini, who Shuuhei now knows is his shadow, stretched and deformed dependent on how high the sun shines in the sky. All of Shuuhei’s dreams and hopes, his values and corrosions are captured in this form, but shaped still – inflicted still – by whatever light he chooses for himself to shine on them both.

He had chosen Kensei first as his light, only for that brilliance to flare out as quickly as it had come – a supernova promise unkept. And then, and then he had seen Tousen-Taicho as his guiding light, a spark in that darkness.

A purpose.

“Tousen was an eclipse,” Kazeshini says, conversationally. Without heat, without judgement. Shuuhei’s hands clench helplessly into fists, and thinks maybe one day he will have an argument against this.

Shuuhei steps forward, into death. Sees the light fade from Tousen-Taicho’s eyes, remembers how so much had died in his captain before then.

The grass is like glass beneath his feet, shattering.

Tousen would have said that there was honor to be found here, in his pain and his endless, continuous death. 

Kensei-Taicho is … well. Kensei-Taicho has always been different.

_“I don’t like this,” Kensei-Taicho says gruffly, concern drawing down his brow. Hand on hips, eyes narrowed and mouth thin. Shuuhei can see him in his mind, has always seen Kensei everywhere but in himself, no matter how hard Shuuhei has tried to carve some essence of his hero into his skin. His captain does not wear concern well, but he dons it now for Shuuhei. His gaze rakes up and down Shuuhei’s form, and Shuuhei knows there is nothing to see. His wounds heal as they form, bones snapping as easily back into place as they snap in half-_

_(He hears them snapping, tenses against his will, and he is fine, he is always fine, he has to be fine because this is a fate he has chosen for himself)_

_Kensei’s gaze rakes up and down Shuuhei’s form, and Kensei sees it all. The exhaustion in limbs that have been torn to pieces a thousand times, the haunted stain that is becoming a permanent fixture in Shuuhei’s eyes. The way Shuuhei has taken to flinching, to forgetting whether pain is real anymore or is just as much a part of him as the soles of his feet._

_“I will get better,” Shuuhei insists, earnest and embarrassed. His Bankai is strong (too strong perhaps for someone as mild as Shuuhei), it is his mental fortitude that threatens him now. He just needs to learn how to endure more-_

_(-break more)_

_Kensei flinches, his eyes hardening into something unreadable._

_“That’s what worries me,” his Taicho mutters, before turning back to the training field. His captain’s coat flares behind him, catching in the wind and it hypnotises Shuuhei for a moment, the way the material flits and falls. “Come, then.” Kensei says, eyes forward and away as he draws out his sword. “Let’s see how much torture you can undergo this time with that Bankai of yours.”_

Kazeshini cackles, delighted, as Shuuhei allows for the memory of Kensei’s words (the strength of his shoulders, the arch of back) to flitter in on a breeze and then pass through. It mingles there in the air with Tousen-Taicho’s convictions and teachings.

Shuuhei is learning, slowly and like a child, to allow others light to not blind him – nor bind him – but instead to spark within Shuuhei a light of his own.

If Kazeshini is his shadow, then it is Shuuhei himself who must be the sun.

“Your move,” Kazeshini says, quiet and dark. They have been training for hours, and Kazeshini is starting to get restless with anticipation. Shuuhei feels it in the way the wind whips around him, and it almost a caress.

Shuuhei breathes in.

Lives again.

And beneath his feet a singular blade of green grass grows.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so pleased someone requested these characters post-CFYOW! I think that the aspect of the cycle of life Shuuhei might struggle the most with with his Bankai actually isn't death - which he has become so familiar with - but life. It's been his narrative for so long - shaped him for so long - that getting to know more intimately the life stage of his cycle of power could be very interesting, especially with Kazeshini as a guide!


End file.
